This Heart is Human
by JessJesstheBest
Summary: After Sadie Hawkin's, Blaine needs a miracle. Luckily, big brother Cooper pulled some strings and got Blainers back on his feet. Will it be worth it? Blaine meets Kurt (as he always does) and things ensue. I am seriously shit at summaries. Rated T for language and talk of hate-crimes. Blangst, Anderbros, it's a lot of fun, trust me.


Red. All Blaine could see was red and pain and brokenness.

This happened every morning. As Blaine's brain turned on and his lungs beeped over to the day setting, speeding up from the slow even breathing of sleep, he was forced into reliving the moments of his death courtesy of his remodeled nervous system.

So there was red and pain and lying in pieces on the blood soaked pavement. Echos of fear for himself and his date, helplessness and resentment. And pain. So much pain Blaine was wishing for death. He was praying to a God he didn't think was listening that his date was already dead so as to be saved from this white-hot agony.

The playback spared no detail. Gravel was embedded in his scalp where it had broken through the gel prison in which he'd caged his unruly curls. Something streamed down his collar and Blaine didn't know if it was his own blood or the spit of his attackers, adding insult to injury. Pain in his head, his spine, his ribs, his kidneys, his hand crushed under a boot, his thigh body slammed. his shirt ripped and his shoes stolen and exposed to the freezing February air.

And then nothing. One more solid kick and Blaine blacked out from the pain.

He was later informed, of course, of the screaming ambulances and the frantic phone calls to his parents and his brother flying in all the way from California. They had to say their goodbyes as Blaine, in a critical state and locked in a coma, only drew breath and pumped blood until he was detached from the various wires and tubes around him. The doctors said he would never breathe on his own; he would never be able to survive off of a machine.

They were right.

Blaine sighed as he pulled himself to a sitting position in his bed. He still wasn't used to the odd angle the sunlight came through the window or the gulls greeting him 'good morning' rather than the warblers he'd grown up with back in Ohio.

Good old Ohio, where the Buckeyes scored, Steven Spielberg was born, and homophobia ran rampant. Ohio, where the only logical reaction to a boy inviting another boy to a Sadie Hawkin's dance was to beat the living shit out of him and his date.

Fuck Ohio.

Blaine dropped his head into his hands and squeezed. He could still hear the jeers of those three upperclassman, despite the five intervening years since the event. The seniors with the clean letterman jackets and the hatred in their eyes. He could still hear Matt's cries and pleading, the words getting weaker and more indecipherable with each punch. He could smell the blood. The memory wasn't crystal clear and all-encompassing like his daily wake-up call but the fear and trauma that came with it smarted just as much as a perfect recall. Blaine squeezed tighter.

_Blaine saw red behind his closed eyelids as he regained consciousness. He was feeling sensation again in the form of a dull ache all across his body, peaking to a shooting pain along his ribs and lower neck. He decided against opening his eyes quite yet, not ready to face the screaming light._

_He wasn't lying flat like he would in a normal bed so, adding that fact to the beeping sounds and the surgically clean smell, Blaine guessed he was in a hospital. A twitch of his foot and the involuntary groan of pain that followed didn't lead him to wonder why._

_"Blaine? Blainey?" a voice said from his left, almost overpowered by the frantic scrambling that was also happening. Blaine recognized the voice, only having heard it over the phone last week._

_"Cooper?" He felt his voice crack from disuse but Cooper seemed to understand._

_Blaine cracked his eyes open at the sob of relief. "Yeah, yeah, hey buddy. God, I'm so glad you're awake."_

_Blaine tried to speak again but nothing came out. Cooper fed him some ice chips and he tried again. "What happened? I just remember after the dance and-" Blaine broke off, looking over at Cooper for confirmation. Cooper's face contorted in pain. "How is- is Matt-"_

_"Fine, everyone's fine." Cooper smoothed Blaine's hair back, tears pooling but not quite falling. "You're fine now, everything's fine."_

_Blaine closed his eyes, focusing on the comforting stroke of Cooper's hand. "Where are Mom and Dad?" Cooper's hand hesitated and Blaine opened his eyes again, settling them on Cooper's face in confusion._

_Cooper avoided his eyes and continued petting Blaine. "Don't worry about that right now, just, just breathe for a little bit okay? How does that feel?"_

_"What do you…?" but Blaine took a deep breath and understood._

_Blaine remembered being beaten. He remembered every kick and every hit and every bruise. Yeah, his ribs were tender but he was sure they should have been broken. He was sure his lungs had been punctured. He was sure his spine was badly damaged. He should have been dead or at least paralyzed but there he was, breathing and wiggling his toes._

_Breathing. Blaine took another experimental deep breath and the new clicking thing happened again. He could feel it more than hear it at the base of his neck, right where the pain was. Blaine took bigger and smaller breaths, trying to figure out what the clicking was and realized he had an extraordinary lung capacity, more than he ever had and definitely more than he should have had after the beating._

_Blaine tried holding his breath. He held it for as long as he could, or as long as he's ever been able to before the accident, and then he kept holding it. He was fine. He counted a full forty seconds longer than his best time before there was a soft 'beep' and his lungs forcibly contracted, demanding he start breathing normally again. Then he didn't gasp for air: just returned to a steady breathing._

_"Cooper, what did- how did- what did you-"_

_"Shh, shhh," Cooper quieted him, still brushing Blaine's hair back as he had been during all Blaine's administrations, "It's okay, you're okay now."_

A loud snore ripped into his consciousness and his head snapped towards his open door before his brain caught up and remembered it was just Cooper, still asleep. His valiant brother who'd taken him in and given him sanctuary.

It was hard to think of Cooper's actions as an act of heroism as Blaine went through his morning maintenance routine. 33 vertebrae in place and operational. Respiratory faculties running and able to reach maximum capacities. Blood/coolant levels: good. Skeletal sustainability: passable. With all the other shit in his system, his bones were under a little strain. The doctors were pushing for alloy infusion but Blaine would be damned before he let them give him metal bones. He saw X-Men Origins, he knew how that would go down.

All systems go, Blaine shifted his legs over the side of the bed with a grunt, annoyed with the early morning effort it was to stand. He'd talk to Cooper about a better mattress when he got back from his run.

With continued grumbling, Blaine yanked on a pair of running shorts and pulled a hoodie over his bare chest. It was chilly at 7 am but Blaine didn't want to commit to an outfit when he knew he'd be showering when he got back anyway. He liked to get out there before tourists and surfers got in the way. Since the accident, Blaine really hasn't been too big of a fan of people.

Running was familiar. Blaine never used to run before; he believed jogging was the invention of sadists and obsessive fitness zealots and he would not be bullied into huffing and puffing in circles.

Well, huffing and puffing wasn't exactly a problem anymore, was it?

He still didn't particularly enjoy running but it brought comfort. The steady repetition of his feet hitting the sand matched up to the beats of his still human heart. The blisters on his heels and the ache in his legs kept him grounded, reminded him he was alive.

Running on the beach gave him a sense of peace. As the kick up of sand stung the back of his calves the ocean breeze cleared his head and ruffled his hair. He'd long since given up keeping it imprisoned in gel, instead letting his curls have free reign atop his head. This wind-blown look wasn't so out of place in L.A. as it was in clean-lines rural Ohio. Blaine ran past other early morning joggers without anxiety.

There weren't only joggers on the beach that morning. There were bird watchers, kids and old people flying kites, and one guy sitting on a blanket halfway up the beach with a drawing pad. Blaine looked at his profile as he approached. The young man wasn't facing the water, though once or twice he looked at the horizon and smiled. He watched the people on the beach and his pencil would fly over the paper, in larger strokes as he watched the runners passing by.

Blaine was just past him when the man's eyes caught on him. Seeing his front view for the first time, he looked about twenty, maybe only a year or two older than Blaine himself. Blaine remarked the slender slope of his nose and the contours of his cheekbones. Then he smiled.

Blaine's right foot slipped left and he tumbled to the sand.

"Oh my God!" Blaine grunted as he registered the pain in his shoulder and tailbone, disoriented by the way he landed, his legs splayed and his elbow buried in the sand. The guy scrambled to his side, kneeling next to his hip and getting sand all over his short yellow cuffed pants. "That was intense, are you okay?"

All of Blaine's breath whooshed out of him at the sudden proximity. His hands were fluttering around Blaine's knee and settling around his shoulder. Blaine could count the freckles sprinkled across the bridge of his nose. "I'm fine, thanks."

His brow was still scrunched with concern but he brought his hands back to himself and smiled. His voice was like a violin. "That fall knocked the wind out of you, huh?"

Blaine chuckled at the impossibility. No, it wasn't a fall that shorted out his bionic lungs. "My name's Blaine." He reached his hand out for the other man to take.

He paused before taking it, smiling. "Kurt."

They shook hands and both of them lingered before letting go, grinning widely at each other.

Blaine looked down at his own mostly bared legs covered in sand next to the boy's expensive looking chinos. "Should you really be on the beach in those?" Blaine surprised himself by asking, "They look like Marc Jacobs."

Kurt looked down at himself as if just realizing. "Oh my God!" he shrieked as he jumped to his feet and frantically started swiping his hands over his legs. Blaine tried not to laugh as he watched, also pulling himself back to his feet.

Lungs still operating efficiently. All vertebrae aligned. No lasting damage.

"Can you help me?" Kurt asked, still running his hands over what he could reach on his pants, looking over his shoulder to see if he got it all. He wasn't quite able to reach the sand on his butt or the back of his upper thighs.

Blaine blushed. "Uh, it's kind of all over your…" Blaine gestured to his backside, not quite able to get the word out.

"Would you mind? You're right, these pants almost cost me my legs." He was desperate enough and attractive enough that Blaine complied, brushing the sand off of his ass, face flaming all the while.

Kurt was taller than he was, but only by a couple of inches. He had a very narrow waist but his shoulders weren't too broad to make it look unbalanced. If Blaine could guess, he'd think he would be a swimmer or a dancer: he was toned but not overtly muscled. His ass really was quite perfect.

Once Blaine assured him he was clean, Kurt released a huge sigh of relief. "Thank you so much. I'm sorry I had to subject you to that."

"I didn't mind that much," Blaine muttered. He could feel his ears heating up. He kept his eyes on the sand.

There was a pause and Blaine could feel Kurt's eyes giving him the once over. He shifted in his oversized Reds hoodie and polyester running shorts, shuffling from foot to foot. When he looked back up, Kurt was eyeing him with interest. "I'm kinda new here but I do really like this spot, especially at this time of morning." He smiled and started making his way back to his blanket. "Maybe I'll see you around sometime."

"Y-yeah, definitely," Blaine stuttered, "I run this beach every morning."

Kurt's smile turned into a full-blown grin. "Then I guess I'll see you tomorrow, Blaine." And he turned around and jogged away.

**...**

Kurt did see Blaine tomorrow. And the next day and every day after that. The settled into an easy friendship and it was barely a week later that Kurt was introducing his family.

"My Dad's a mechanic." Kurt said, rolling his eyes. "He wears a greasy pair of jeans and a flannel shirt every damn day of his life. And God forbid he's seen without one of his ratty baseball hats. The fashion world weeps for him."

Blaine laughed, picturing a typical, gruff, middle American man. He couldn't imagine someone like that being related to someone as fabulous as Kurt.

"So how did you...uh…" Blaine waved his hand vaguely, not wanting to make assumptions.

Kurt grinned. "Come out?" Blaine nodded and Kurt looked away, still smiling.

"My mom died when I was six," Kurt said, watching the foam on the water as they walked, "so it's been just my dad and me for a long time." Blaine watched his eyes crinkle a little at the edges when he chuckled. "I thought I was going to die when I told him I was gay. Not that he was going to kill me or anything but that he was going to be, I don't know, disappointed? Sad? I don't know, I just- I couldn't imagine not having my dad, after everything." Kurt smiled softly as the sea foam dissipated on the sand.

When Blaine refused to take his sweatshirt off, even after Kurt had shed his own overshirt, standing in just a wife-beater and high waters, Kurt suggested he take a break from sketching so they could take off their shoes and wade in the water. It was too hot, he said, to be wearing a hoodie on the beach.

It's not that Blaine was ashamed of his body; due to all the running he was pretty fit anyway, but bearing his torso would also bring his scars, violent and surgical, to the light of day. Blaine had been assured that the skin grafts and simulated flesh would blend seamlessly with his naturally olive skin but he'd never had the confidence to expose himself to the unforgiving sun to see if that was true.

"So what happened?" Blaine asked, pulling at his collar to try to get some air flow. "What did your dad say?"

Kurt's smile widened. "He said he already knew. He said he'd known since I was three and he might need some time to get used to the idea but he still loved me and we'd always have each other." Kurt looked away but not before Blaine could see the mistiness of his eyes. And if Kurt sniffled a little, Blaine ignored it.

"What about you?" Kurt asked after he's (mostly) composed himself. "What about your family?"

Blaine flinched. "Well, I live with my brother Cooper. He's ten years older than me and has a lucrative acting career as the free-credit guy."

Kurt's eyes widened. "_Free credit rating today dot com!_" he sang, "_Slash savings!_"

Blaine laughed. "Yeah that's him. He's been taking care of me for a couple years. We're in general agreement that he doesn't care if I'm gay if I don't care how much of a man-whore he is."

Kurt chuckled at that. "And what about your parents?"

Blaine bit his lip. "My parents? I uh…"

_Cooper had shut the door when they left, but Blaine could still hear them clear as a bell._

_"You had no right to do this!" His mother yelled, voice shrill. "He's our son, we make the decisions."_

_"I couldn't let him die!" Cooper said back, just as fiercely but in a lower volume, presumably to keep Blaine from hearing._

_Their father had no such qualms. "That wasn't your decision, Cooper," he boomed, "How did you even find this Doctor Rhinestone?"_

_"Dr. Josef Reinstein. He's a medical engineer and he said he could help. He needed a test subject for his biotechnic lungs he's been prototyping. They also gave Blaine a spinal column to support them because his spine's been beaten to shit. And look, Blaine's alive!" Cooper said, desperately, "He's awake!"_

_"He shouldn't be!" His mother hissed. Blaine's breath would stutter if his lungs knew how. "That boy is an abomination!"_

_"Because he's alive or because he's gay?"_

_There was a heavy silence and Blaine didn't want to hear anymore. Still, his ears strained for an answer as he tried desperately not to cry._

_"At least if he'd died from that beating that's one normal thing he'd have done." Blaine's father's voice was low but it carried and Blaine lost the battle with his tears. "Now he's a fag and half robot. He's twice as unnatural."_

_Blaine wanted to sob. He wanted his breath to hitch and his shoulders to shake with grief but his body didn't work that way anymore. Now, he was forced to sit and cry silently._

_"Give me custody." Cooper pleaded, his voice strained from dampened fury. "Sign over his custody to me and I'll take him with me to California. We'll be halfway across the country; you'll never have to see us again."_

_"You'll have to promise us that."_

Blaine shook his head, clearing the fog out from the memory. He cleared his throat and watched his feet make wakes in the water. "I don't, uh, I don't talk to my parents anymore."

There was an awkward silence. The first one, maybe ever since they'd started meeting regularly.

Blaine didn't blame Kurt; some people were just born lucky enough to have parents who loved them unconditionally. It wasn't Kurt's fault Blaine wasn't one of them.

Blaine felt a soft pressure on his hand and looked to see that Kurt had taken it in his own. Blaine looked at Kurt's face and Kurt met his eyes with sympathy and compassion. He didn't ask any questions or offer any words of comfort, he just held Blaine's hand, squeezed, and let go.

There were no words to express how grateful Blaine was to have Kurt in that moment.

They walked a little way along in silence, just enjoying each other's company.

"What's that?" Kurt interjected, pointing to something a little way up the beach. Startled, Blaine looked at the dark, shiny thing that had caught Kurt's attention.

"It looks like a sea pancake." Blaine mused.

Kurt gasped. "It's a sting ray! We have to save him." Kurt broke into a jog and Blaine scrambled to follow.

On closer inspection, the thing was pretty big: about the size of a hubcap. "What?"

"Well we have to get him back in the water. He'll fry on sand."

Blaine watched, incredulously, as Kurt lifted one side of the stingray and flopped him on his back.

"Kurt!"Blaine grabbed his shoulder and wrenched him back. "Kurt, that thing could be poisonous! If it's even still alive."

The sting ray then decided to move, wriggling it's tail on it's back, cancelling any doubt. Kurt looked at him, pathetically. "Well we have to do something!"

"Well, why don't we use your shirt to pick it up so we're not directly touching it."

Kurt looked at Blaine as if he'd suggested they light puppies on fire. "It's a McQueen."

Blaine huffed out a breath in exasperation as he glanced around for something to help them. His eyes lit on some seaweed floating in the shallows. "How about that?" he asked gesturing toward it.

Kurt wrinkled his nose in distaste.

"You just touched a possibly poisonous sting ray and you're concerned with seaweed?"

Kurt considered that then jogged to go fish it out.

When he returned, Kurt and Blaine wrapped it around their hands and each grabbed an edge of the animal. "You ready?" Blaine asked. When Kurt nodded, they both lifted the sting ray.

It wasn't heavy, but it squirmed a lot in their hands. They ended up half-running sideways so they could get the stingray in the water before they dropped it.

They did reach the water, relatively unscathed save the sand that had been scattered over them from the wriggling creature. The stingray didn't even bother to thank them for their trouble, immediately swimming out of sight.

"You're welcome." Kurt said anyway as he peeled the seaweed off of his hands. Blaine just laughed.

...

Blaine was sitting on the couch with Cooper, Chinese takeout boxes scattered amongst them, talking a mile a minute.

"And did you know he lived in New York?" Blaine enthused, digging in his takeout container for another shrimp. "He worked as in intern for and he worked closely with Isabelle Wright -she's an executive for the company- and she told him he was one of the most stylish people she'd ever met!"

"Uh, huh," Cooper smirked over his own Chinese, "tell me about the time he walked on water, too."

Blaine grimaced and threw some rice at him. "Shut up."

It was a rare event that the brothers got to sit down and eat together at all, but neither of them could remember the last time Blaine talked this excitedly over dinner, about anything. It was just shy of a month after Blaine had run into Kurt on the beach and after Cooper's needling questions, Blaine had been compelled to mention Kurt. Since that first time, Blaine couldn't stop talking about him.

"So if he's a fashion intern," Cooper asked, gesturing to Blaine's ratty t-shirt and basketball shorts, "why does he talk to you?"

Blaine blushed, remembering what Kurt had said when he asked something similar.

_Kurt grinned and waved his hand dismissively. "Don't worry about it. It's common knowledge in the fashion industry that some people could wear a potato sack and look like they're about to walk the runway." His smile widened. "I don't try and design for people like you."_

Blaine made the executive decision not to tell Cooper about that.

"Kurt goes to the beach to get sketches of the way people move and how the fabric is going to move and stuff. He's never lived near the water before he got a job here so he tries to get a feel for how clothing fits on different bodies during different, ya know," he gestured with his hands, almost toppling his sweet and sour chicken, "beachy activities."

Cooper nodded, chewing and swallowing his lo mein before smirking again. "So he's not just trying to pick up nerdy running guys like you."

Blaine blushed again and threw more rice at him. "We're just friends, Cooper."

Cooper snorted, not bothering with a proper response.

**...**

The next morning it threatened to thunderstorm. The sky was laid heavy with clouds and the high winds carried the promise of stinging rain if only it could be bothered to fall. Usually, Blaine wouldn't risk a run by the water, especially with the rumble of thunder in the distance. But Kurt might be there and even on the chance he was, Blaine would go out. Blaine would brave a storm for Kurt.

He wasn't in his usual spot when Blaine ran up. He came all the way up to the place Kurt spread his blanket and peered around, thinking maybe Kurt just got a late start.

After ten minutes, Blaine was sure Kurt wasn't coming. After twenty minutes, Blaine was sitting in the sand watching the lightening over the water, letting the grains run through his fingers. After a half hour had gone by, Blaine was cross-legged, hunched over, head tucked into his chest, hands clasped behind his head, armed hugging his ears, reminding himself his lungs didn't need his consent to operate.

_"Blaine!"_

It was carried on the wind which had just begun to howl. Blaine squinted against it, trying to find where the shout came from.

There was Kurt, struggling down the beach hugging his blanket and smiling in relief.

"Kurt!" Blaine tried to stand and start running towards Kurt but his feet were seized by pins and needles and he immediately collapsed back to the sand.

"Oh my God," Kurt laughed. He dropped the blanket and ran the last few yards, collapsing to his knees next to Blaine. "Are you okay?"

Blaine glared without heat, the pain already seeping out of his hip and shoulder. "Don't mock, it's not cute."

"Shut up, I'm totally cute."

Blaine didn't deny it.

Lungs still operating efficiently. All vertebrae aligned. No lasting damage.

"I didn't think you were coming."

Kurt frowned. "I know, I'm sorry. My roommates were freaking out about the weather; they didn't want me driving."

"Well why did you?" Blaine asked, the wind almost drowning him out, "Why'd you risk it? You had to have known there'd be no people on the beach to sketch."

Kurt raised an eyebrow and Blaine took a moment to look over Kurt's shoulder where his blanket was fluttering on the sand, threatening to fly away. There was no sign of a sketchbook. Blaine looked back at Kurt, confused.

Kurt chuckled once in disbelief. "Blaine, I haven't picked up a pencil on this beach in a week. I stopped bringing my sketchbook three days ago."

"So why-?"

Kurt shoved at his shoulder, laughing. "I come to see you, you idiot."

"Oh," Blaine's face melted into a smile, "okay then."

Kurt stood up and helped Blaine back to his feet. Neither of them worried about the state of their sandy clothes, Blaine only wearing sweats and Kurt having left his designer clothing at home, roughing it in a polo and old Levis.

Blaine helped Kurt gather up his blanket.

There was another thunderclap, this one louder than the others. They both looked at the foreboding mass of purple clouds in worry.

"Do you want to maybe get some coffee?" Kurt asked, gesturing vaguely to the clouds. "Neither of us should be out in this weather but I don't want to miss out on my daily dose of Blaine."

"You mean like a date?"

Kurt blushed and ducked his head a little. "I'd be okay with it being a date."

_"You mean we'll go to the dance as … like...dates?"_

_"Well…. I wouldn't mind it being a date"_

Not the same. It wasn't the same.

_Red and pain and laying in pieces on the blood soaked pavement._

He could hear the wires in his spine creak with the tension.

"I can't," Blaine blurted, "It's just, I...uh ...my brother, ya know, he'll ...uh, want m-me to check in, or-" Blaine started retreating, tripping over his feet, trying not to look at the hurt on Kurt's face. "Just, please come back tomorrow. I'll be here tomorrow, please be here tomorrow, Kurt. I'm sorry, I just, I'm so sorry." And he turned and ran, faster than he's ever sprinted, away from Kurt.

**...**

Blaine stormed in sweaty and covered in sand. "What happened to you?" Cooper asked over his morning coffee as Blaine wrestled himself out of his sweatshirt, "You trip over nothing? Maybe we should have given you robot feet while we were already in there."

"That's not funny, Cooper," Blaine snapped, throwing his hoodie to the tile floor. The tenseness in his body made his voice unusually sharp. "My deformity is not a fucking joke."

"Whoa," Cooper held his hands up, begging off Blaine's aggression. "I'm sorry. What happened to Mister Sunshine? You've been so happy recently. What about Kurt?"

Cooper said it like a peace offering, like if Blaine could just remember Kurt he'd calm down. It only served to tighten Blaine's jaw. "Well I'm real fucking sorry I can't be all smiles today. It's not like I'm doomed to a mutant life or anything."

"You're not a mutant."

"I'm not _human!_"

Blaine could feel his nails biting into his palms and the tightening in his shoulders made his bones creak. There was a muffled warning beep in the back of Blaine's head telling him that the pressure in his spine was becoming dangerously high. Blaine hoped it would break him.

"Of course you're human!" Cooper shot back. "You're my brother, my flesh and blood-"

"Manufactured flesh and artificial cooling electrical impulse transmitters to replace my blood."

"Hey," Cooper stood, towering over Blaine. "You're not completely like that. The little bio-tech you have saved your life."

"You _ruined_ my life!" Blaine's shouts are louder than most given his unnatural air circulation. "I'm always going to be alone! How can Kurt, or anyone else, want to be with a freak? A robot?"

"So what was I supposed to do," Cooper screamed back, not quite reaching the same powerful volume as Blaine, "let you die?"

"Yes! Please!" Blaine brought his hands up and started pulling at his hair. "Being dead would be so much better than having to deal with all of this shit. I'm not natural. I shouldn't be alive." His voice got gradually more subdued as his back hit the door, talking more to himself than to Cooper. He sank to the floor, folding in on himself, his elbows hugging the side of his head. "How could anyone ever love me? I'm not even a person."

Cooper had given everything to Blaine. Somehow, Blaine was unsure of the details, Cooper had snuck in right under the noses of their parents and gotten Blaine the technology that would save his life. It took a 30 hour surgery, months of seeing if Blaine's body would reject the implements and a lot of prayer and wishful thinking, but, well, Cooper came through.

Again, it was hard to think of Cooper's actions as heroic when he knew just how fucked up his 'life' was.

"Blaine…" Cooper had deflated entirely, his anger wilting with Blaine's collapse to the floor. "Blaine, what brought this on?"

Blaine was still tugging at the curls behind his ears but he raised his head to look at Cooper, briefly, before looking away again. "Nothing, really. I have these kinds of thoughts all the time. Always have."

"Bullshit." Cooper sat on the floor in front of Blaine, his hands warm around Blaine's wrists as he gently pulled them away from his hair. "Blainey, you really were getting better. You were happy. Why Hulk out today?"

Blaine tugged his hands back from Cooper and wrapped his arms around his knees, pulling them towards his chest. He shrugged his shoulders, avoiding Cooper's eyes.

"What was that about being alone? About love?" Blaine tensed but Cooper kept going. "About Kurt?"

Blaine looked up at Cooper, his eyes murderous. Cooper looked back with an awkward sternness.

Blaine released a bitter sigh. "The weather's kind of shitty so instead of sitting on the beach Kurt asked if I wanted to go for coffee." Blaine's cheeks went red. "He said it could be a date if I wanted."

Cooper brightened but immediately turned back to confusion. "Why isn't that a good thing? I thought you liked him."

Blaine's face went redder. "There's no way I _couldn't_ like him, Cooper." Blaine started picking at the loose threads on his sneakers. "He's smart and funny and he's sarcastic without ever being mean. He likes to blow tons of money on designer fashion but will kneel in the sand to help a stranger and save a stingray that get's washed up on the shore. We have just about everything in common and he smiles at me like…" Blaine trailed off, tilting his head back and letting his eyes glaze over with wistful confusion. "He smiles at me like I matter."

Cooper ignored the sentimentality of the moment. "So you don't just think he's pretty?"

Blaine chuckled, shaking his head. "He's the most beautiful person I've ever seen."

"Then why the frowny face and angry voice?"

Blaine gave up on his shoes and looked back at Cooper, his eyes naked with pain. "It's like I said, isn't it? He's so amazing, so wonderful, why would he want me if he knew I was damaged goods? Why should he? It's hard enough to have gay relationships accepted, how many picketers will there be for a human/robot union?"

"Technically you're a cyborg." Blaine gave Cooper a bitchface. "So are you afraid he'll reject you if he finds out you're not 100% organic or are you afraid of gay-bashers still?"

"I don't know, both?" Blaine brought his arms up again, hugging his head to his chest. "I ran from him today." Blaine said, his chin brushing the soft fabric over his chest and the smell of his own sweat clogging his nostrils. "He asked me for coffee and I ran. Just like I ran to California."

"Hey now, you didn't run here. I brought you here so you could be out of the toxic environment of Ohio."

"It doesn't matter, I ran and now he's not gonna want to bother with me again."

The way Blaine was curled in on himself he was a kid again. The five year old Blaine who was pouting that his big brother was going to a party and wouldn't be taking him tick-or-treating. Or the three year old Blaine who was not emotionally prepared enough to deal with 'The Fox and the Hound'. The way he was curled up resembled almost perfectly how Cooper found him in his room the day he left Ohio, his tiny, 8-year-old body swathed in one of Cooper's t-shirts, back to the door so he couldn't leave.

There was shuffling and then a warm presence on Blaine's left side. Blaine could hear Cooper's mental search for comforting words as clearly as he could hear the rain that was now, finally, steadily pelting the windows. Cooper made several aborted movements of his hand, first reaching for Blaine's knee, then his hand, then his arm swung as if Cooper were going to wrap it around his shoulders but each time he brought it back with a sigh.

Blaine noticed this with the kind of periphery thinking you use to fold laundry or wash dishes. The majority of his headspace was occupied by angst and misery.

Cooper gave an impressive sigh. Blaine looked over at him sad and tired eyes meeting another weary pair. Cooper's shoulders drooped and even his hair, straight and perfectly styled where Blaine's was curly and wild, was limp with exhaustion.

"Look, Blaine," Cooper paused to sigh again and lifted one hand in another aborted attempt at a shrug, his shoulder brushing Blaine's. "Anything I say is just going to come out sounding unbelievably corny and I really don't want to subject you to that." They both chuckled a little, weakly. "I really don't know how to help you," he continued, "but I want to. Kurt will come around." He brought his left hand around to tap on the left side of Blaine's chest. "This heart is still human."

The sentiment struck a chord with Blaine. It did. Hadn't he been thinking on his runs about the inherent humanity of his heartbeat? Didn't the heartbreak and the heartache he felt lend to just how human he still was? Still feeling, still healing?

So yeah, Blaine appreciated the sentiment, but he still had to laugh. "'This heart is still human?' What next, are you going to appear in the clouds and tell me to '_remember who you are_'?" Blaine quoted, adopting the deeper voice of Mufasa.

Cooper grinned and leapt on Blaine, wrestling him into position so he was holding Blaine around the chest, a hand on his heart. "'This heart is where you truly live! This heart!'" Blaine laughed and twisted away and scrambling to his feet.

"_'Now let me show you the shape of my heart'_" he sang, complete with pouting boy band stance.

Cooper countered with his own rendition of "Achy Breaky Heart" which was followed by Blaine's attempt at "Jar of Hearts" which quickly dissolved into the two of them dueting 'Total Eclipse of the Heart'.

Soon, both brothers' stomachs were cramped with laughter and their throats were sore with the abuse of trying to out belt each other. Blaine's t-shirt was stretched at the neck and he could feel several bruises forming on his torso from the wrestling that had ensued for the spotlight. He had rugburn and his voice cracked and he was actually getting really hungry.

Blaine relished in these small discomforts, these expressions of pain because, like the blisters on his heels and the pound of his heart, they reminded him he was human. Human enough to be Cooper's pain-in-the-ass little brother and, maybe, human enough to deserve Kurt.

Maybe red didn't have to be pain.


End file.
